


we ran out.

by orphan_account



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Brothers, Gen, Why do I do this, another crystal pepsi fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 16:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1175458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We’ve still got a couple cans, but he won’t be runnin’ for very much longer."<br/>“Enjoy him while you can! I’m pretty tired of him myself.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	we ran out.

To put it simply, they all knew that it would happen one day. As it was, The Jon had been built strangely compared to Rabbit and The Spine. His joints were hinges where they should be rotating and sometimes vice versa, his speech processors would spit out languages none of them had heard before, and he seemed almost eternally childlike, in a way. Crystal Pepsi was the kicker.

It’d been the product of a rather unfortunate business deal with Pepsi back in the day, when Walter Robotics was struggling for cash. Peter V hadn’t seen anything wrong with the idea, but then, he was much less committed to reading contracts than his father had been. They got an absurd amount of Crystal Pepsi out of the deal. What they _didn’t_ get was the memo that when the soft drink was discontinued, they were still contractually obligated to use it as a source of fuel for The Jon.

Behind the commotion of day-to-day life, they didn’t think about it much, considering that Jon had always probably been the liveliest out of all of them. He was constantly looking for something new to do or make. Sure, this left several rooms in the mansion covered in paint and/or crayon on multiple occasions, but no one was ever angry with him about it, if only because Pappy wouldn’t have been. Like any of them, The Jon was in charge of refueling himself, as long as he didn’t malfunction and nothing seemed wrong. 

So no one ever checked how much Crystal Pepsi remained in their stock, which had once looked endless. On occasion, some might have to be carried up from storage into Jon’s room, and he’d ask The Spine to help out with it. It didn’t seem like too little until it was gone, though.

-

The Jon’s last show was the best he’d ever been a part of. There was something about the air that positively sparked — and not in a physical way, as that could’ve hurt someone. It just seemed that everyone was at their peak. Rabbit was as involved with the crowd as ever, The Spine was offering a bit more input than usual; even Sam and Michael were putting their very best efforts into their parts of the act. None of them knew but The Jon, of course. They couldn’t possibly. But it was still perfect, somehow. His brothers always had a way of making things perfect without knowing it.

When they got back to the mansion that night, chatting amongst themselves and joking about who-knew-what (Rabbit nearly dropping his umbrella during Out In The Rain, Walter Girl Brianna dusting The Spine’s hat and nothing else, The Jon naming his suspenders) to one another, no one bothered going separate ways. The conversation lasted forever, skating from topic to topic, until Rabbit’s stutter advanced into a full-on glitch for a few seconds and reminded them all that it was late. That they’d best be turning in for the night.

Jon was the first to go. He gave The Spine and Rabbit each an enthusiastic hug, which wasn’t much out of the ordinary for a performance night, and then almost solemnly told them the following things: “Rabbit, you tell the best stories,” and “You gotta make sure Sam doesn’t get my bass, okay?” But it was just The Jon being odd again. That was all.

-

Rabbit had thought The Spine was being ridiculous when he went to make sure The Jon had woken up. It was eleven in the morning, after all. He’d probably just forgotten to set a sleep timer again. Nonetheless, he was waiting for The Spine’s return, absently stirring the cup of coffee he’d just made and very well knew he wasn’t allowed to drink, especially after the last time. It’d taken six hours for Michael to get his boiler completely cleaned out, and that had not been a fun experience for _anyone_ involved.

The first thing that set off a red flag was that The Spine didn’t actually call for Rabbit using his voice. He was using the Walter radio waves, which was, while a fine way of communicating, mildly outdated and pretty quickly tore down any semblance of normalcy. The distress in the signal was obvious in the way it came, not in a collected thought but as a feeling and a few words.

"Rabbit. We ran out."

The spoon he’d been stirring with bent in his fingers, held too tightly, and he tried to fight back the oil rising to his eyes as he walked to the stairs.

-

"Th' Spine?"

“Yes, Rabbit?”

“What do ya think ha-ha-happens to us..? When we, uh..”

“I don’t know.”

“Humans think there’s this p-place. I asked Sam about it, but-t-t —”

“I don’t. Know.”

“.. Yeah. N-N-N-Neither do I.”

-

Peter Walter VI sighs through his mask, the action only serving to warm it up a bit against his face. The light in his office comes solely from the monitor of his laptop, casting a faint glow onto his pale hand as it moves across the keyboard. The screen displays a few simple images, accompanied by descriptions and numbers:

Vintage Crystal Clear Pepsi 16 Oz Sealed Bottle Cola | US $100.00  
Crystal Pepsi Unopened 16 oz Bottle RARE Sealed | $59.99  
Crystal Pepsi Unopened 16 oz Bottle RARE with Aluminum Top | $69.99

That’s all. Forty-eight ounces, $230 that the Walters won’t miss. But he closes the page, shuts down his computer, and without another thought on it, goes to bed.


End file.
